I didn't even catch this on my own. It's never specifically mentioned. All attention paid to it is that he has a little viewmaster thing of pornography from Paris. But it's a fact: Darl served in World War I. Now what is Faulkner's reasons for making him a vet? It would have been easy enough for him to leave those couple sentences out of the novel completely, and they would not have been missed. However, he intentionally puts them in there. Could it be that Darl is suffering post-traumatic stress disorder, or his brain was fried by the mustard gas in the war? Or could that be used to show that he's the only one that's seen the world, and that's why he's able to see the absurdity of the situation and laugh like a madman? What are your thoughts?- NVa-c Feb 25, 2008
I think it might serve as some root to Darl's craziness. Maybe the fire of the barn triggered some past expiriences that caused him to totally lose it like he did. So would Darl's questions of existence he talked about earlier in the book come from him being crazy or him seeing another part of the world and expiriencing death in a way no one around him had? I don't think that Darl was crazy in the beginning of the book, but he definately thought differently. What struck me was that nobody mentioned that he was a vet. Why wouldnt people talk about it, or use it as an excuse for his craziness? - adi-c Feb 25, 2008 This page was last revised by mmi-c on Feb 28, 2008 7:37 pm.
I personally think why Faulkner gave such little attention to the fact that Darl was a WWI veteran was to make a commentary on society's and even the government's treatment of vets who have gone through a traumatic time in their lives. Often does society judge those who appear to be mentally ill without questioning the causes for it. They just assume that they're off their rocker and throw them away in a sub par asylum where even the workers there do no care. And I think by paying little attention to such an important detail, Faulkner is saying that all too often do people forget to learn before they judge.- MSu-c Feb 25, 2008
When I first read the sentence that said Darl had been in Paris during the war, I assumed that he really was going crazy and that he was making things up. But, now that I think about it, I suppose that it makes sense that Darl was in the war, as Nick mentioned, since he always looked at the world around him in a different way than the rest of the family. Darl always seemed to me to have a clearer view of the reality of any situation than the others, perhaps because his perspectives had been widened in his travels. Furthermore, this also helps me to understand why Darl behaved the way in did in certain situations, especially when he lit the barn on fire: if he had been in the trenches of WWI, he would have been exposed to terrible death and suffering in such inhumane conditions that the idea of carting a rotting body around would hit him hard, triggering memories of the war, and perhaps even upsetting him because the idea of a body laying around and rotting unnecessarily is really irreverent given that in wartime, it is often a struggle to bury the bodies. If there is a possibility for a respectable burial, it should be done as soon as possible.
As for why Faulkner didn't mention this, I think he was trying to make a point about the society that the Bundrens live in: their world is so old-fashioned and backwards to all the common ideas of normalcy and human progress (we also don't see telephones and cars until late in the book) that they are unable to comprehend how important war-time experiences may have been for Darl. Most importantly, I think it is a statement about their limited view of the world and how little they know about functioning as a normal family. - lsi-c Feb 25, 2008
I think that if his experiences in war were the root of his insanity Faulkner would have developed his background as a veteran a little more in the book. I agree that perhaps the corpse stirred old memories, and I'm sure that it helped lead up to his insanity but really if it were the real cause I think it would have deserved more than a sentence in the novel, and the signs would have been apparent throughout. I thought it was strange that he seemed to be unaffected by his time spent in world war one, but couldn't deal with the trauma of his own family, it seems like a stretch but that was the impression I got from it. I don't know could he be suffering from a Rambo kind of thing were he's perfectly fine, and then some random thing just sends him off the deep end? I think maybe I just don't know enough about the nature of Post Traumatic Stress disorder, so if anyone wants to fill me in I would really appriciate it. - jko-c Feb 25, 2008
I will say that this whole WWI reference that Faulkner throws in helps to explain the insanity that overtakes Darl so I agree basically with what NVa has to say. I will say though that his issues have nothing to do with mustard gas or chemical agents like that because the chemical agents used in WWI were all blinding/debilitating chemicals that either ruined one's vision or hearing or other such things or led to a quick death. With that aside, I will say that the issue of WWI probably has a lot to do with his going insane as back then they didn't have any treatments or ways of diagnosing post-traumatic stress disorder. I don't think they even really knew what it was to be totally honest. Being in WWI was probably particularly stressful for a simple country boy like Darl because he was probably incredibly shocked and confused by the massive amount of corpses littering battlefields and just the massive insanity that was WWI which was of cours known as "The war to end all wars" at least during this time period.
I just think that somehow his post-traumatic stress issues reared up and he freaked out and set the barn on fire trying to burn up the coffin with his mother in it because back in WWI he would have seen a lot of corpses getting burned and the burning of a corpse probably meant to him that the journey would end just like how the ever-increasing body count and bloodshed in WWI helped encourage leaders to work more towards peace. I don't blame the guy for what he did because he was not right in the head and in his mind this was the only solution to getting out of this horrific journey to bury the coffin.- KRi-c Feb 26, 2008
im not that good with medical history, but was post traumatic stress disorder really such a known cause to craziness back when? my thought was that faulkner used this little detail to show that the crazy one knew how things went in the not so poised world at large. he knew the worst humans could do to each other he has seen it. so with this fact that he is a vet how do we change our views on his crazy antics? they dont seem so crazy anymore, but he is stil treated as insane. the fact that he is a vet changed my perception of his trying to burn addie and the coffin. he wasnt doing it becuase he was crazy, well maybe, but he was doing it becuase he knew that this trip was destroying his family. he knew that cash was hurt and jewel was drifting away and he knew that dewey was not on the strait and narrow. he could read people, unless i am mistaken that he was the people reader, he knew his father never really loved his mother. his experiences in a war had to have given him insite into situations. he could step back and realize that this trip is insane, even more insane than the war. im sure he did go crazy though. its hard to bounce back after your emotional center has been shot through by all the pain witnessed in ww1. thats why he still laughed when he realized they wree basically sending him off to die in some asylum. they banished him to be with the rest of the "crazies". one more note, even thirty years ago asylums where bad, think of how bad they had to be in darl's time. JTu-c
I would have to say that while being in the war may have aided Darl's insanity, I don't think it was the initial cause of his eccentric behavior. When Brother Tom first suggested that Darl was a veteran, my mind jumped straight to Post-Tramatic Stress Disorder, as many of you have mentioned. However, due to the very late mention of Darl being a veteran and the other characters' interpretations of Darl, I would have to say that this isn't the main cause of his personality. The characters tend to see Darl as crazy and simply accept him for that. When he does something weird, they think, "Oh, that's just Darl being his queer self." I can't remember any moment (except once with Cash) when a characer ponders why Darl is that way. I just think that if Darl was mentally wounded from the war, the other characters might remember Darl as he was before the war and wonder what changed him. There is no sense of that. From what we know and what is implied, Darl has always been this way. The war probably didn't help his mental health, but I don't think it was what completely broke him. - Kho-c Feb 26, 2008
I agree with Kho. It just seems like when people talked about the queer look in his eye they would mention something like it didn't exist before he went to war if Post-Tramatic Stress Disorder was actually the cause of his apparent and percieved madness. I mean Faulkner narrates his chapters through characters' thoughts, and if I saw a rather biazzre neighbor who became crazy after fighting in a war, I would probably think something along the lines like Mr. Jones is so strange, he never used to be like that before. Thus, I believe he has always been a little out of the ordinary but not always this obviously imblanced because he would never have been allowed to join the armed forces and fight in the war if he had a mental disability. Does anyone else have a comment? - kva-c Feb 26, 2008
I really don't think Darl suffered from PTSD. My reason for that is his transformation throughout the book. Something that happened during the course of this book changed him, made him crazy, made him mad. Although I have several theories, the best and most likely is that Darl, seeing things the way they were and the selfish actions of most of his family members, was driven mad by what he saw. What he saw may have triggered the bad feelings that started with the war possibly. Kathleen is correct about his eyes, but I think what the book refers to is that kind of hardness and stern look that one would get after a term in the war, but due to his suprising transformation, I do not think the war caused him to go crazy. Rather it was a combination of his mother's death and the realization of the vices of his own family. Perhaps he burned down the barn in an effort to return to normalcy and save himself from going mad. - PSp-c
The first thought that popped into my head after learning tha Darl had been in the war was that he was suffering from PTSD, but the more I think about it, the more inclined I am to agree with Peter. I believe that was definitly had a negative effect on Darl. I am sure that being in a war was extreamly difficult and when he returned home, I am sure he wanted some sense of security and normalcy. But of course, that is the exact opposite of what he got. I saw Darl as being one of the most stable characters in the begining of the book - he seemed to have reasons for his actions and he seemed to be fairly calm. I think he really broke down on that trip to Jefferson - if the whole thing had never happened, I think he would have managed a rather stable life. At one point, after the accident in the river, Darl tells Vardaman that Addie was turning in her coffin and that he knew that she wanted it to just be over and be able to go to heaven. I think this is when he just wanted it over with. He believed that it would be best for the family to just turn around and go back home. He knew that the majority of the family was going to Jefferson for selfish reasons and I think that that is what pushed him over the edge. - MBe-c Feb 26, 2008
I don’t think that PTSD has a large role to play in Darl’s madness but I do think it did play some role.PTSD can be set off by the most random acts or phrases that people use.Maybe Darl had some bad experience with a barn while he was on his way to the front or maybe someone said something that brought back a horrific memory that helped him snap.But, I don’t think that was the major factor.I agree with a lot of you guys that it was a combination of factors that led to his insanity.I can’t see this as a social commentary on how people treated soldiers or perceived the war because Faulkner spent so little time developing this.Even if he purposefully left out details to demonstrate how little people cared about the vets he would still have to go a little further with the development than he did.I also wonder if Darl ever actually fought on the front lines.The only reference we get was that he was in Paris when he, in Nick’s words, got that “viewmaster thing”.What if he simply had a desk job or was some type of clerk who was stationed in Paris.I think if he had actual frontline experience and horror stories to tell, at least one character would have made some mention about it.Even if Darl didn’t like to talk about his experiences, if he had had frontline experience someone would have at least referenced it as a possible reason for him being queer. - kli-c Feb 27, 2008
Although it did not seem to have a large effect on the way we readers view Darl, those details could be an additive to highlight the oddity of the family. I am not so sure that we are to take it like he had PTSD, since, as KHo mentioned, we do not get the notion on whether or not Darl had always been talked about by the townsfolk as abnormal. What I am thinking is more to the point of why Darl went mad. I'm no history buff, but if one is enrolled in the army, aren't the rules really strict? I'm sure they had to have order, and were supplied with many rules by which to abide. When he is in close quarters with his family, there are no rules, and if there were, everyone was breaking them. There was no reprimand for misdeeds (for the most part), because no on ewould acknowledge that a misdeed actually was that. Some of the family members, like Jewel in his rage and Anse with his selfishness, could behave in any manner they liked and that would be seen as okay. Darl's strict past, when met with his chaotic present, may have clashed and been a significant reason for Darl to lose his cool. - Sha-c Feb 27, 2008
That is an interesting theory, Sha. But as others have mentioned, he does not seem to have all of a sudden been crazy... his family acts as if he has been crazy for a long time. Maybe that is just them being characteristically negligent, or maybe it is true. My question is, why were none of the other brothers in the army? Cash and Jewel? Wasn't there a draft at this time? This could be insignificant, but it's just curious to me how Darl is the only one who served in the war. - mmi-c Feb 28, 2008
I think it might serve as some root to Darl's craziness. Maybe the fire of the barn triggered some past expiriences that caused him to totally lose it like he did. So would Darl's questions of existence he talked about earlier in the book come from him being crazy or him seeing another part of the world and expiriencing death in a way no one around him had? I don't think that Darl was crazy in the beginning of the book, but he definately thought differently. What struck me was that nobody mentioned that he was a vet. Why wouldnt people talk about it, or use it as an excuse for his craziness?
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This page was last revised by mmi-c on Feb 28, 2008 7:37 pm.
I personally think why Faulkner gave such little attention to the fact that Darl was a WWI veteran was to make a commentary on society's and even the government's treatment of vets who have gone through a traumatic time in their lives. Often does society judge those who appear to be mentally ill without questioning the causes for it. They just assume that they're off their rocker and throw them away in a sub par asylum where even the workers there do no care. And I think by paying little attention to such an important detail, Faulkner is saying that all too often do people forget to learn before they judge.-
When I first read the sentence that said Darl had been in Paris during the war, I assumed that he really was going crazy and that he was making things up. But, now that I think about it, I suppose that it makes sense that Darl was in the war, as Nick mentioned, since he always looked at the world around him in a different way than the rest of the family. Darl always seemed to me to have a clearer view of the reality of any situation than the others, perhaps because his perspectives had been widened in his travels. Furthermore, this also helps me to understand why Darl behaved the way in did in certain situations, especially when he lit the barn on fire: if he had been in the trenches of WWI, he would have been exposed to terrible death and suffering in such inhumane conditions that the idea of carting a rotting body around would hit him hard, triggering memories of the war, and perhaps even upsetting him because the idea of a body laying around and rotting unnecessarily is really irreverent given that in wartime, it is often a struggle to bury the bodies. If there is a possibility for a respectable burial, it should be done as soon as possible.
As for why Faulkner didn't mention this, I think he was trying to make a point about the society that the Bundrens live in: their world is so old-fashioned and backwards to all the common ideas of normalcy and human progress (we also don't see telephones and cars until late in the book) that they are unable to comprehend how important war-time experiences may have been for Darl. Most importantly, I think it is a statement about their limited view of the world and how little they know about functioning as a normal family. -
I think that if his experiences in war were the root of his insanity Faulkner would have developed his background as a veteran a little more in the book. I agree that perhaps the corpse stirred old memories, and I'm sure that it helped lead up to his insanity but really if it were the real cause I think it would have deserved more than a sentence in the novel, and the signs would have been apparent throughout. I thought it was strange that he seemed to be unaffected by his time spent in world war one, but couldn't deal with the trauma of his own family, it seems like a stretch but that was the impression I got from it. I don't know could he be suffering from a Rambo kind of thing were he's perfectly fine, and then some random thing just sends him off the deep end? I think maybe I just don't know enough about the nature of Post Traumatic Stress disorder, so if anyone wants to fill me in I would really appriciate it. -
I will say that this whole WWI reference that Faulkner throws in helps to explain the insanity that overtakes Darl so I agree basically with what NVa has to say. I will say though that his issues have nothing to do with mustard gas or chemical agents like that because the chemical agents used in WWI were all blinding/debilitating chemicals that either ruined one's vision or hearing or other such things or led to a quick death. With that aside, I will say that the issue of WWI probably has a lot to do with his going insane as back then they didn't have any treatments or ways of diagnosing post-traumatic stress disorder. I don't think they even really knew what it was to be totally honest. Being in WWI was probably particularly stressful for a simple country boy like Darl because he was probably incredibly shocked and confused by the massive amount of corpses littering battlefields and just the massive insanity that was WWI which was of cours known as "The war to end all wars" at least during this time period.
I just think that somehow his post-traumatic stress issues reared up and he freaked out and set the barn on fire trying to burn up the coffin with his mother in it because back in WWI he would have seen a lot of corpses getting burned and the burning of a corpse probably meant to him that the journey would end just like how the ever-increasing body count and bloodshed in WWI helped encourage leaders to work more towards peace. I don't blame the guy for what he did because he was not right in the head and in his mind this was the only solution to getting out of this horrific journey to bury the coffin.-
im not that good with medical history, but was post traumatic stress disorder really such a known cause to craziness back when? my thought was that faulkner used this little detail to show that the crazy one knew how things went in the not so poised world at large. he knew the worst humans could do to each other he has seen it. so with this fact that he is a vet how do we change our views on his crazy antics? they dont seem so crazy anymore, but he is stil treated as insane. the fact that he is a vet changed my perception of his trying to burn addie and the coffin. he wasnt doing it becuase he was crazy, well maybe, but he was doing it becuase he knew that this trip was destroying his family. he knew that cash was hurt and jewel was drifting away and he knew that dewey was not on the strait and narrow. he could read people, unless i am mistaken that he was the people reader, he knew his father never really loved his mother. his experiences in a war had to have given him insite into situations. he could step back and realize that this trip is insane, even more insane than the war. im sure he did go crazy though. its hard to bounce back after your emotional center has been shot through by all the pain witnessed in ww1. thats why he still laughed when he realized they wree basically sending him off to die in some asylum. they banished him to be with the rest of the "crazies". one more note, even thirty years ago asylums where bad, think of how bad they had to be in darl's time. JTu-c
I would have to say that while being in the war may have aided Darl's insanity, I don't think it was the initial cause of his eccentric behavior. When Brother Tom first suggested that Darl was a veteran, my mind jumped straight to Post-Tramatic Stress Disorder, as many of you have mentioned. However, due to the very late mention of Darl being a veteran and the other characters' interpretations of Darl, I would have to say that this isn't the main cause of his personality. The characters tend to see Darl as crazy and simply accept him for that. When he does something weird, they think, "Oh, that's just Darl being his queer self." I can't remember any moment (except once with Cash) when a characer ponders why Darl is that way. I just think that if Darl was mentally wounded from the war, the other characters might remember Darl as he was before the war and wonder what changed him. There is no sense of that. From what we know and what is implied, Darl has always been this way. The war probably didn't help his mental health, but I don't think it was what completely broke him. -
I agree with Kho. It just seems like when people talked about the queer look in his eye they would mention something like it didn't exist before he went to war if Post-Tramatic Stress Disorder was actually the cause of his apparent and percieved madness. I mean Faulkner narrates his chapters through characters' thoughts, and if I saw a rather biazzre neighbor who became crazy after fighting in a war, I would probably think something along the lines like Mr. Jones is so strange, he never used to be like that before. Thus, I believe he has always been a little out of the ordinary but not always this obviously imblanced because he would never have been allowed to join the armed forces and fight in the war if he had a mental disability. Does anyone else have a comment?
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I really don't think Darl suffered from PTSD. My reason for that is his transformation throughout the book. Something that happened during the course of this book changed him, made him crazy, made him mad. Although I have several theories, the best and most likely is that Darl, seeing things the way they were and the selfish actions of most of his family members, was driven mad by what he saw. What he saw may have triggered the bad feelings that started with the war possibly. Kathleen is correct about his eyes, but I think what the book refers to is that kind of hardness and stern look that one would get after a term in the war, but due to his suprising transformation, I do not think the war caused him to go crazy. Rather it was a combination of his mother's death and the realization of the vices of his own family. Perhaps he burned down the barn in an effort to return to normalcy and save himself from going mad. -
The first thought that popped into my head after learning tha Darl had been in the war was that he was suffering from PTSD, but the more I think about it, the more inclined I am to agree with Peter. I believe that was definitly had a negative effect on Darl. I am sure that being in a war was extreamly difficult and when he returned home, I am sure he wanted some sense of security and normalcy. But of course, that is the exact opposite of what he got. I saw Darl as being one of the most stable characters in the begining of the book - he seemed to have reasons for his actions and he seemed to be fairly calm. I think he really broke down on that trip to Jefferson - if the whole thing had never happened, I think he would have managed a rather stable life. At one point, after the accident in the river, Darl tells Vardaman that Addie was turning in her coffin and that he knew that she wanted it to just be over and be able to go to heaven. I think this is when he just wanted it over with. He believed that it would be best for the family to just turn around and go back home. He knew that the majority of the family was going to Jefferson for selfish reasons and I think that that is what pushed him over the edge.
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I don’t think that PTSD has a large role to play in Darl’s madness but I do think it did play some role. PTSD can be set off by the most random acts or phrases that people use. Maybe Darl had some bad experience with a barn while he was on his way to the front or maybe someone said something that brought back a horrific memory that helped him snap. But, I don’t think that was the major factor. I agree with a lot of you guys that it was a combination of factors that led to his insanity. I can’t see this as a social commentary on how people treated soldiers or perceived the war because Faulkner spent so little time developing this. Even if he purposefully left out details to demonstrate how little people cared about the vets he would still have to go a little further with the development than he did. I also wonder if Darl ever actually fought on the front lines. The only reference we get was that he was in Paris when he, in Nick’s words, got that “viewmaster thing”. What if he simply had a desk job or was some type of clerk who was stationed in Paris. I think if he had actual frontline experience and horror stories to tell, at least one character would have made some mention about it. Even if Darl didn’t like to talk about his experiences, if he had had frontline experience someone would have at least referenced it as a possible reason for him being queer.
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Although it did not seem to have a large effect on the way we readers view Darl, those details could be an additive to highlight the oddity of the family. I am not so sure that we are to take it like he had PTSD, since, as KHo mentioned, we do not get the notion on whether or not Darl had always been talked about by the townsfolk as abnormal. What I am thinking is more to the point of why Darl went mad. I'm no history buff, but if one is enrolled in the army, aren't the rules really strict? I'm sure they had to have order, and were supplied with many rules by which to abide. When he is in close quarters with his family, there are no rules, and if there were, everyone was breaking them. There was no reprimand for misdeeds (for the most part), because no on ewould acknowledge that a misdeed actually was that. Some of the family members, like Jewel in his rage and Anse with his selfishness, could behave in any manner they liked and that would be seen as okay. Darl's strict past, when met with his chaotic present, may have clashed and been a significant reason for Darl to lose his cool. -
That is an interesting theory, Sha. But as others have mentioned, he does not seem to have all of a sudden been crazy... his family acts as if he has been crazy for a long time. Maybe that is just them being characteristically negligent, or maybe it is true. My question is, why were none of the other brothers in the army? Cash and Jewel? Wasn't there a draft at this time? This could be insignificant, but it's just curious to me how Darl is the only one who served in the war. -